1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved plastic strand pelletizer for cutting thermoplastic material into pellets after it is formed into strands and cooled. The improved pelletizer includes a novel housing arrangement which permits ready access to the cutting chamber of the pelletizer for cleaning and maintenance of the component parts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Plastic strand pelletizers have been utilized for many years to cut cylindrical strands of thermoplastic material into short cylindrical pellets. The pellets are trans-shipped to plastic product manufacturers where they are melted and utilized to produce plastic products as, for example, in injection molding machines. Plastic pellet suppliers exercise great effort in order to produce plastic pellets that are uniform in size and shape and that do not contain contaminants which would adversely affect the finished plastic product that is manufactured from the pellets.
In prior plastic strand pelletizers, contamination of the product could result since it was difficult to have access to the cutting chamber of the pelletizer to clean it. If, for example, the initial batch of pellets formed from a specific run of plastic was not up to standard because the plastic had not been thoroughly mixed before the first run of strands was produced, the bad pellets might become lodged within the pelletizer and be passed later into a good pellet mix thereby contaminating the good pellets.
Some examples of plastic strand pelletizers and the systems in which they are utilized are set forth in the following patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,975,483; U.S. Pat. No. 3,186,277; U.S. Pat. No. 3,519,706; U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,929; U.S. Pat. No. 4,413,965; U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,248; U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,298; U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,020; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,822.